I didn't know of Emily Carr prior to this book, so I learned about a new artist! Interesting that it is based on a chapter in her autobiography.

This was adorable! This is such a beautiful way to teach kids about appreciating nature and how truly unique it is.

This is a beautiful and complex picture book. It's is abstract and poetic. I understood it more after reading the information in the back. This book would be best for older children, it's got a meta element to it that wouldn't be appreciated by a young child.

Cute book. I picked it because of the title and cover, was pleasantly surprised to find out it was about Emily Carr.

This story is inspired by one called "White Currants" written by Emily Carr herself. The book highlights Emily's childhood. The author creates a flashback snippet of young Emily taking a romp through the garden. She loves to steal away by herself and breathe in the sights, sounds and colours of beautiful nature. In these adventures she feels small, so small that she can blend in with leaves and plants and her surroundings becoming one with them. Small becomes untamed, powerful, and curious which enables her to do magical things in her magical world. She loves to absorb these wonders then take them back to write and paint so others can share her wonderment too.

This book gives a glimpse into the very heart of Emily Carr and reveals her passion for self-expression and her love of the natural world around her. Unlocking her freedom brings much joy and happiness not only to herself but to others as well through her creative skills. The illustrations from her imaginary world are expressive and rich and strongly driving the narrative. This is a lovely introduction to Emily Carr and the profound contributions she has made to the artistic world. I highly recommend it.

This book seems to be geared toward older kids. It is slow moving and wordy. It is about a moment in artist Emily Carr’s life when she was a child.

Lauren Soloy has written a beautiful homage to the artist Emily Carr with this beautiful children's book. I honestly didn't even know who Emily Carr was until after I read this and then was inspired to learn more about her. While I did find this story to have a bit of a heavy undertone, I did really enjoy the story of a young Emily using her imagination to create her own bigger worlds.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The illustrations in this book were gorgeous. I was a bit confused in reading the book. I felt that a bit more of a back story or the end note being at the beginning would help tremendously. The story was still interesting and quite good.

ARC Copy...the illustration of nature especially the green colour tones and shadows does invoke the use of Carr's bold brush strokes and colour in her landscape, and the verse imagery also contains the themes of nature, movement and emotion from the POV of small girl in a big natural world.

This is an odd story at times, it's true, but it's written about an artist as a child and is based on her own story of that time. Reading the end note first may help children and their grown ups understand the story a bit more. Nonetheless, it's charming and the artwork is beautiful once we get into her world (it starts out a bit weird in a not-as-beautiful way to me). I don't understand why the character of "Wild" is a wolf in clothes, but I'll just go with the artist's creative vision. :) A lovely story about art, wildness and creativity, and a lovely intro to studying the artist Emily Carr.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

When Emily Was Small is a fun and adorable book for children, we loved reading this book together!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.